In hindsight, it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise when Netflix in recent days announced a pair of cancellations — Marvel’s Iron Fist and Luke Cage shows. Netflix, of course, famously keeps its viewership figures close to the vest, so we never know if something is a hit or a dud based on that metric.
But we do have something else to go by: Social media chatter. And as you might suspect, social media chatter and buzz related to Iron Fist and Luke Cage had both essentially fallen off a cliff prior to Netflix giving both shows the ax.
Using data provided by consumer insights company Crimson Hexagon, Business Insider reported that “when the first season of Luke Cage premiered in September 2016, there were over 300,000 Twitter and Instagram posts regarding it. That number took a huge dive when the second season was released this June, with less than 50,000 posts.”
For the critically derided Iron Fist, same story. After the first season debuted in 2017, it garnered almost 120,000 posts on Twitter and Instagram. The second season, meanwhile, never managed more than 20,000 posts.
It’s not a perfect indicator, by any means. Nevertheless, it could give us a hint about the fate of two other Marvel shows on Netflix: Jessica Jones and Daredevil.
Again, per BI: “The good news for Daredevil and Jessica Jones is that the results aren’t as dramatic as for Luke Cage and Iron Fist. The bad news is that there is a noticeable pattern in that interest has wavered after the shows’ first seasons.
“There were nearly 300,000 posts on Twitter and Instagram for the first season of Jessica Jones. That was cut in half when the second season was released this year. Daredevil, the longest-running Netflix Marvel show so far at three seasons, has seen a drop in social-media buzz over time, but less so than the other shows. The first season in 2015 saw nearly 275,000 posts, while season two saw a little over 200,000. That’s not a huge drop, and the recently released third season inspired around 75,000 posts halfway through October, meaning that number could increase by month’s end.”
According to the Crimson Hexagon data, in spite of the drop-off in social media chatter the overall sentiment for the four shows has been mostly positive. Daredevil got the highest sentiment score, at 79 percent, with Iron Fist coming in the lowest, at 53 percent. Time of course will tell if the decline in social media buzz around the shows matches up with more cancellations.
